Ron Wilson has always been one of the more interesting coaches to follow in the NHL. Aside from his gruff temperament, he’s also heavily involved in using new technology to help him coach, and using advanced statistical measures to make player decisions. He’s an innovator, and that makes him a fascinating coach to study.

He also seems to have discovered something that most NHL teams are still blind to.

Nearly every fan, player, coach and manager can agree that being on the power play is vastly preferable to playing five-on-five (this is true even for teams with a lousy power play), and that playing five-on-five is far better than playing shorthanded (again, this is true even for a poor five-on-five team with a great penalty kill). If there were a way to ensure that a given team could spend more time on the power play than on the penalty kill, it would represent a significant advantage.

Ron Wilson seems to have found a way.

Because Wilson has had three full seasons at the helm of both the Sharks and the Maple Leafs in the post-lockout era, we have a nice sample of how both teams play both under him and under other coaches. If we look at how many times each team was shorthanded vs. how many power play opportunities they got, we see a striking pattern:

Toronto

Season

Team

Pen. Kills

Power Plays

Difference

Coach

2005-06

TOR

496

501

+5

Quinn

2006-07

TOR

418

401

-17

Maurice

2007-08

TOR

352

343

-9

Maurice

2008-09

TOR

308

330

+22

Wilson

2009-10

TOR

288

315

+27

Wilson

2010-11

TOR

275

326

+51

Wilson

Average

TOR

422

415

-7

Other

Average

TOR

290

324

+33

Wilson

San Jose

Season

Team

Pen. Kills

Power Plays

Difference

Coach

2005-06

SJS

399

500

+101

Wilson

2006-07

SJS

330

410

+80

Wilson

2007-08

SJS

310

374

+64

Wilson

2008-09

SJS

306

360

+54

McLellan

2009-10

SJS

327

309

-18

McLellan

2010-11

SJS

274

289

+15

McLellan

Average

SJS

346

428

+82

Wilson

Average

SJS

302

319

+17

Others

These are two completely different teams, yet we see the same trends. Under Wilson, both clubs had more opportunities on the power play than on the penalty kill. The Sharks had the most favourable ratio of power plays to penalty kills in the entire league under Wilson; they dipped a little in his first year gone and have hovered around the break-even mark ever since. The Leafs went from a team that was always shorthanded to a club that gets far more power plays than penalty kills.

It seems at least plausible, given this information, to credit Wilson with the shift.

Does it make a difference? We’ve seen that the Leafs were below average at generating power plays/avoiding penalty kills prior to Wilson, and given the emphasis on “truculence” under Brian Burke there’s little reason to believe that has changed. However, we’ll compare the Leafs under Wilson to a break-even team (a team with an equal number of power plays and penalty kills):

Season

Team

Extra PP

Fewer PK

PP%

PK%

Expected Goals

2008-09

TOR

11

9

18.8

74.7

+4.3

2009-10

TOR

14

13

14.0

74.6

+5.3

2010-11

TOR

26

26

16.0

77.4

+10.0

Over three seasons, the Leafs’ ability under Wilson to generate more power plays and kill fewer penalties has gained them almost 20 additional goals – an extra eight goals for and 12 fewer goals against. It’s a little more than an extra win per year.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.